Winter's Touch
by Pen-Versus-Sword
Summary: Saved from the hangman's noose, Anders has much to thank Leonie Caron for...but can he let go of his selfish ways before time runs out for them both? Rated for graphic violence, sensuality (in later chapters), adult language, and adult situations. Heavily edited version. F!Caron x Anders
1. Prologue

If there is one certainty in life, it is this: everyone's moment of truth comes sooner or later. And it is always faced alone.

And here it was.

The Blackmarsh was as silent as death, save Anders' own struggles and the mad little mob of Genlocks. _Honestly_, he thought to himself, _these little bastards have found me so unaware of their presence, that it was as if they caught me with my smallclothes around my ankles._

Anders cast about for someone – _anyone!_ – that could assist him. He could handle anything the remnants of the Blight could throw at him, but as of very late, things had gotten decidedly dicey. The Darkspawn had mobbed around the nearly-spent mage. Gasping in terror, he realized he was alone in this rotting bog. His friends were either dead, or had fled.

"Damn it all," Anders said, _sotto voce_. A Hurlock, decorated with filthy, decaying trophies from its kills and a blood-caked horned helmet, descended on the misfortunate mage. The blasted thing led a crowd of Genlock grunts; all of the ungodly things were intent on unzipping Anders' guts and shredding the rest of his body into strip-steak.

They were fast, he'd give them that. One second, they were entering the glade, and the next second they were on him – biting, rending, ripping at his pale flesh with foul claws and broken teeth and serrated, diamond-encrusted weapons. Two chittering Genlocks grabbed Anders' arms, and yanked him – bellowing obscenities and spitting more venom than a Giant Spider – to the ground. His staff dropped from his numbing fingers, and was kicked unceremoniously to the far side of the glen. The Hurlock leader raised his nicked axe above his head, so as to split Anders' head in two.

Anders continued to shriek vulgarisms, even as he brought one leg up and kicked the Hurlock in the belly. The Hurlock doubled over, _whoofing_ air out of its lungs. It staggered away, out of the clearing. Anders scrambled to his feet, bleeding from a dozen lacerations and bite wounds. The Genlocks milled about...without a leader, their focus faltered. One tiny Genlock found its courage first, and bit Anders, high on one hip.

This bit of bravado was enough to spur the other members of the tiny Horde into attacking Anders again. They swarmed him, waving their weapons and baring their teeth at him. Anders, cursing his poor luck – and quite tired of the attention, really – squeezed his eyes shut, and thrust his arms straight out from his shoulders.

_"PISS OFF!"_ he howled. The dozen or so Genlocks that milled about Anders were violently thrust away from him. The two or three that dropped dead from the shock to their systems were the lucky ones. The rest stood or lay stunned, and were annihilated by the remainder of Anders' magical reserves.

He raised his arms high above his head. The air in the bog chilled, freezing the very water particles in the aether. "Bit of a nip in the air...eh, fellas?" said Anders, as he wove the spell out of the last of his mana stores. The remaining living Genlocks froze solid...grisly ice sculptures chiseled by an impotent, hateful Being.

Anders nodded once to himself. He hobbled across the copse to retrieve _Lamppost-in-Winter_, his staff. He bent his knees slightly and scooped up the _Lamppost_, when his knees knocked together. Anders' legs collapsed under his own body weight, and he crumpled to the sodden earth.

On any other day, Anders would have found the floor of this particular bog to be revolting at best. Now, as he lay half-submerged in a dirty Blackmarsh mud-puddle, he found his latest predicament to be almost comfortable compared to what he had just endured. He could not raise his head, nor could he move his arms or legs. He was spent.

"Erm...help," he said in a wavering voice to no one in particular. What was meant to be a sarcastic drawl came out as a pained whisper. It terrified Anders, that sound, so he closed his eyes and began to focus himself. He took a deep breath, held it, released it.

As he slowly gathered his energy and wits about himself, his head filled with an inhuman gabbling noise. Eyes widening, he sobbed in terror. Whatever happened to the small horde of Genlocks made little difference, now. The Hurlock he sent staggering out of the tiny Blackmarsh glen was back...and if Anders' Grey Warden survival-senses were as sharp as Leonie told him they would become, he sensed the Hurlock wasn't alone.

"Maker. Maker help me," he said. Anders had no idea how he could find the strength to make it to his feet...but find it, he did. He cradled his staff to his chest, intent to make his last stand count.

The Hurlock bellowed mindlessly at Anders; Anders made an obscene gesture at the Hurlock and sneered at it. "Come on, then," he said to the Hurlock. "Is that all you can do, my lad? _Yell_ at me?" The Hurlock cocked his head at Anders. It chuckled; a horrid, grinding noise that held very little semblance to real laughter. It continued to laugh at Anders, even after Anders' smirk had slid from his chops. It unnerved Anders, made his hair try to stand on end.

He gesticulated at the Hurlock wildly with his staff. "Come _on_, you vomitus mass! Stop wasting my time!"

For a moment, it seemed like the Hurlock would run at him. At the last second, the creature laughed again, shook its head, and turned to leave the copse. Anders felt a wave of relief wash over him, just as something warbled in his ear.

He turned unsteadily on his heel; he saw nothing behind him, and nothing to his right or left. He spun around, and tried to pinpoint where the sound came from. His breath came in fits and spurts as panic rose in his chest like seawater.

Then the Shriek was on him.

The fiend knocked Anders to his back, tearing a swath from his robes. It squalled at Anders as the man scrambled unsteadily to his feet. The creature wobbled around Anders on its spindly legs, gauging its prey. Anders brought his staff up, hoping beyond hope that it would be enough to deal with the Shriek.

Anders shook with exhaustion and deathly terror. He thought of Leonie again, and realized that he'd never see her face again...at least, not on this mortal coil. He felt a moment's regret for what could have been – hell, for what _should_ have been – before he nodded once at the madly caterwauling Shriek.

"Come on, then," he said to the Darkspawn, as he hefted his staff. "Let's do this."


	2. Dreamscapes

_Back to the Under..._

_Run...run from the Humans!_

_Come back to the dark...all is lost Topside._

_Come home. Come home to your Mother!_

Darkness.

The walls of the Underdark ran with the slime of a thousand aeons of rot. Decomposition assaulted his nose, making it pinch. His steady inhalations stuttered in his panic; his lips trembled, despite his courageous attempts to stay the shakes. It was all he could do not to break down in this damp pit; it was all he could do to keep himself from sitting on the decaying floor of this wet cave and wrapping his arms around his knees and wailing into the dark like a frightened, lost child.

He could taste the Fade in this claustrophobic chamber. He knew he walked the Fade, and yet...control was elusive. He could not control where his feet took him. He could not move his body with his considerable mind powers, could not tell himself to stop moving toward the horror that awaited him at the end of his walk. He wanted desperately to leave the Fade – something he once thought was as simple as walking to a door and opening it to the real world.

A tiny moan escaped his lips, and continued at each exhalation. Cold sweat popped out along his hairline and across his upper lip. Oh, he had lost control, and it terrified him – here where demons gamboled and vied for his already-damned soul, he was lost and moved by forces beyond his reckoning.

Just how long he walked, he did not know...it could have been a few minutes, or a few months, or centuries...but he finally made it to the end of the long underground road. The cavern had widened at the end of his trek to gargantuan proportions. Its sheer size made his breath catch in his throat.

At the center of the cavern, a monstrous sight awaited. Perhaps this horror was beautiful, once. Now, her very visage caused his bowels to turn to water.

She noticed the mage watching, as he stood before her; she grinned maliciously as his mouth quivered wetly, and he wrapped his arms around his belly to hug himself and rock on his heels – perhaps in some way giving himself comfort from the horror that jiggled and cackled before him.

She knew what he needed. Comfort like that could only be given by Mother herself.

"Welcome," she said to Anders. She ran her hands over her breasts, and he quailed miserably when a viscous black ichor ran from her nipples. She held her chitinous, bloody hands out to the hapless mage. "Come to Mother."

* * *

Swimming up from the depths of sleep, Anders twitched violently. He gasped once before he realized he was finally awake. He took a deep breath. That _never_ happened to him – he always had full control of himself in the Fade, and almost never had nightmares. Anders closed his eyes, and waited for his heart to stop trip-hammering in his chest.

"Welcome back to the land of the living. How do you feel?"

The tow-headed mage's eyes flew open. He turned his head on his sopping pillow, only to blink bemusedly at King Alistair. He nodded. "I'm all right...am I still dreaming?"

"Not as far as I can tell," said Alistair. "Why do you ask?"

As Anders' reality solidified around him, and the Fade – well, _faded_ – he regained his customary cheek. "It isn't a regular thing for me to dream about the King of Ferelden, if you need ask...but you understand what I mean. What are you _doing_ here?"

Alistair started slightly. He set what appeared to be a hand-puppet and a stuffed horse on Anders' windowsill, grinning in a hangdog way and flushing slightly. "Of course, I understand completely. The Queen and I have come to Vigil's Keep on State affairs, and decided to stay the night. It's a long journey back – and I don't trust the roads at night – so we've decided to leave fresh in the morning."

Anders frowned a bit. He drew his blankets to his chin in a defensive manner. "Erm, I understand all _that_, but what are you doing here in my room?"

The King made a noise of understanding in his throat. "Mmm. Well, if there are fresh Warden recruits, we seasoned Grey Wardens keep an eye on them...at least for the first sleep. For the nightmares. They can be pretty bad, especially after the initial swoon. Your Warden Commander needed a babysitter, so I volunteered."

"Right." Anders sat up on his narrow cot, cradling his head. He fought what felt to be a losing battle of attrition with his trembling muscles and roiling gut. "Is the hangover always this bad after the Joining?"

"It could be worse." Alistair stood, and stretched. "One of your number didn't survive the Joining. The young lady that accompanied the Commander to Vigil's Keep...she didn't survive."

Silenced by this bit of information, Anders pressed his lips together. "Mhairi," he finally said in a hushed voice.

"Yes." Alistair spread his hands in commiseration. "I'm sorry about your friend."

"I didn't really know her well," said Anders. "But still..." He smoothed his sleep-fuzzy hair back from his temples, and squinted out the window. Buttery sunlight angled through the open-air window in Anders' Spartan bedroom. "What time is it?"

Turning his head to follow Anders' gaze, Alistair shrugged and waggled his head back and forth. "Four in the afternoon, I suppose. Almost supper time, I'll wager." Anders' stomach made a loud _groinging_ sound, and Alistair laughed. "You'll find that your belly will be your best time-keeper now. It will never forget to tell you when it's suppertime."

"Good. I'm starving." Anders swung his legs over the side of his cot. He hooked a leather thong from his night table, and deftly tied his hair back. "What happened to Nate and the stinky dwarf?"

"They're both fine. The Commander just escorted Oghren to the dining hall, and before I checked in on you my wife told me that this Nate fellow was still asleep. I'm not sure why she wanted to keep vigil over this man...it's not like the Queen is a Warden, or anything." He pulled a face. "It was almost as if she knew who he was. He seemed awfully familiar to me, at any rate."

As he slipped his robes over his smallclothes, Anders kept his silence. He felt that the King of Ferelden should be kept ignorant of the other recruit for the time being. If anyone was going to tell burly, Archdemon-killing King Alistair that Arl Rendon Howe's youngest brat was one of the newest Warden recruits, it most _certainly_ wasn't going to be him. Anders liked being alive, for one thing. Anders was certain that, although known far and wide as a gentle, kindhearted man, King Alistair would still be plenty miffed if a smart-mouthed new recruit clued him in that the son of the man that killed his best friend's parents was now a fellow Warden. Anders had heard through the Grapevine about Loghain, and knew how quickly Alistair had made the man's head and shoulders part company.

Instead of dropping the bomb, Anders shrugged instead. "I suppose we'll find out soon enough."

"Right." Alistair raised his hand to the bedroom door. "To dinner, then."

As Anders blearily ran his hand over his sleep-grizzled face and walked to his _boudoir_ door, he remembered what his new Warden Commander had done for him in the face of Rylock, the female Templar that had pursued him for the past two weeks.

He nodded the tiniest bit to himself. She was all right, in his book. As soon as he found out what was expected of him and what his marching orders were, he would do what was asked...and if he was lucky, he'd find a pretty girl or three, have something to eat (as he was inexplicably starving)...and best yet, he'd get a real taste of freedom from the Circle for the first time in his life after his usefulness for these folks ran out.

* * *

The dining hall was nearly vacant, save for the double handful of people seated at the smallest of the half-dozen or more heavy oaken tables. Steaming tureens and overflowing platters made the table almost groan with their combined weight. The smell of supper alone made Anders' stomach grumble loudly again. He licked his bottom lip slowly. Food never looked so good.

"I can't wait to tuck in," he said, gazing upon the massive spread with something akin to reverence. Alistair laughed and clapped the mage on one shoulder. When Anders turned to Ferelden's liege, the King motioned to the table with his chin. Anders didn't need to be told twice.

As he sat down and grabbed a serving spoon, he nodded to the Orlesian Warden that had recruited him. She nodded in return, and asked what King Alistair had asked just minutes before. "Are you well?"

"I'm a bit wobbly, but otherwise I'm fine," he said. "More hungry than anything else. Is this normal?" He heaped potatoes on his sparkling clean plate. "I've never been this hungry, even when I was on the run and literally starving to death."

"Fall to, Sparkles," said Oghren, patting his belly. "The nosh is excellent."

Anders tucked in as Nathaniel finally entered the dining hall and blearily sat next to him. Oh, sustenance never tasted this good before. He rolled his eyes closed and chewed in a state of bliss. "Compliments to the chef."

"You're welcome," said Senechal Varel. The older man glanced at the Warden Commander, and grinned, a trifle uneasily. "I had help, but this recipe is my own mother's."

Anders remembered his walk in the Fade, and shuddered. He swallowed with some effort. "It's...it's good," he finished lamely. "My compliments to your Mum." He glanced at the woman that had just seated herself to Varel's right, and couldn't help but stare wide-eyed and slack jawed at the veritable eating machine.

Her belly pooched out past her pendulous breasts. The intricate braids that (Anders was sure) some hapless servant or five had helped her plait that morning were coming unraveled in her mad rush to eat everything in sight. She shoveled food into her maw at speeds beyond reckoning. Her plate had been piled high with things that even Anders couldn't stomach. She looked at Anders and twinkled around a mouthful of tripe.

"Good evening, Ser Mage," she muttered.

Anders blinked once in surprise. "Maker, you're huge."

"Ha," said Oghren, belching. "Watch out."

The half-expected slap upside Anders' head came complete with a small utterance of disgust. He turned his head with infinite slowness to his attacker, an ersatz grin stretching his chops. Nathaniel gaped at the mage, sneering. "Queen Anora is with _child_, you moron! Show some respect!"

Instead of sweeping from the room at the obvious insult in tears, Anora nodded ruefully at Anders. "Since the baby had begun to grow larger, my appetite has increased tenfold." She looked down at her half-denuded plate and snorted a self-deprecating laugh. "Now I eat almost as much as King Alistair."

"A woman after my own heart," said the King, winking at his wife. "It's impressive...I thought _I_ was going to be the one to bankrupt the Kingdom with my appetites." He waggled his eyebrows at Anora, who flushed prettily.

Nathaniel and Anders watched this tiny show of affection between husband and wife, smiling bemusedly. It was well-known that the Royals' marriage was a political one, but it was heartwarming to see genuine affection between Alistair and Anora.

The King cleared his throat, smoothing his fine silk brocade doublet. "Right. Had your fill, love?" When Anora patted her lips with a napkin and nodded, he stood and held his elbow out to her. "Well, then. It's time for your beauty rest, my Queen...not that you need any in my opinion, but still." He nodded to the table. "Until next time."

The royal couple left for their quarters, amidst farewells and chuckles and a drunken wolf whistle from the dwarf. Alone, the Wardens, their vassals, and various help fell into a companionable silence, filling the quiet with lip-smacks and grunts and the occasional belch as they filled their bottomless bellies.

Leonie, the new Warden Commander from Orlais, drained her wine goblet in one gulp. She set the goblet down with a heavy metallic _thunk_ and looked at Anders. "So," she began, breaking the silence, "Rylock mentioned you were a wanted apostate. That's the only reason you were on the run?"

"Mm-hmm," Anders said, digging enthusiastically into a pot-pie. He shoveled half into his mouth at once, and mumbled around the pastry. "I escaped the Tower seven times. The Templars and I...there's no love lost between us."

His new Commander raised her eyebrows until they brushed her hairline – no mean feat, as they rode close to her gray eyes. "Good grief. It's a wide-eyed wonder they haven't executed you by now."

He chewed his now-tasteless pot-pie, while his eyes flashed minutely at Leonie. "Wonders never cease, do they?"

She refilled her goblet, and met his gimlet gaze with her own. "They do not."

He frowned at Leonie. "Well!" he said, after taking a quick breath and flashing Leonie a false, sunny grin, "I have you to thank for my freedom. Were it not for you, my bonny dear, I'd be at the bitter end of a hangman's noose. After I'm done doing whatever you need me to do, I will find greener pastures...preferably in another country so as to remain unseen by Ferelden's Circle."

Leonie and Varel exchanged a brief glance, and Varel rose from the dining table. "Excuse me," he said to the new Wardens, and turned to the other soldiers still seated at the table. "All right, men. Hup! Dinner is over, and each of you have something else to do."

When the table was vacated, Leonie dropped her eyes to her dinner plate. "What makes you think you are truly free?"

His eyebrows drew together sharply. "Are you telling me I'm trapped _here_, too?"

Leonie drained another goblet. "Oh, no...you're free to go whenever you like. You _will_ be Tainted for the rest of your short life."

"Uh-_huh_," said Anders, his dander up. "So the Grey Wardens will come and get me if I escape? 'You can run, but you can't hide'...ooh, very cloak-and-dagger, Commander. I...wait." He shook his head so hard the gold hoop in his ear jangled. "What did you mean by my _short_ life?"

"You have thirty years, maximum," said Leonie, meeting his shocked gaze, "before the Taint drives you to madness. We Wardens go to the Deep Roads to die when our Calling comes. It is better than succumbing to the Taint. We know it is time when the nightmares begin again..."

"You handed me a death sentence!" His jaw dropped. "You glibly conscripted me, knowing the Taint would kill me in thirty years?"

"Or less," she said quietly. "Some Wardens last for thirty years, some for less...some for one or two years at the most. The Taint affects everyone differently." Her heart went out to the mage; she reached out and touched his hand. "'Twas either that or the Templars. You didn't deserve that fate, after your help. You will make a fine Warden."

"Maker's _Breath_," said Anders, yanking his hand out of Leonie's grasp. He lapsed into a stunned, morose silence. The rest of the Wardens followed suit.

The dwarf broke the quiet. "How in the Void did you manage to escape seven times? Were the Templars that stupid, or did you have to come up with more novel stuff? You'd have to," said Oghren as an afterthought, "or the Templars would've had you figured out before you even got out of your Tower after the second attempt."

Anders looked up from his now-defunct pot-pie, shaking off his funk as easily as a Mabari shook off fleas. "Yeah. I had quite a few interesting escapes. Once, I swam across Lake Calenhad to escape." He chuckled. "I made sure none of the babysitters were looking in my direction, then tore my robes over my head and jumped in wearing nothing but my boots. By the time I made it to the other side, I was exhausted and half drowned and my hair had water weeds tangled in it. I lost one of my boots somewhere halfway across." He grabbed a baked potato from one of the enormous platters. "I liked those boots, too.

"The Templars found me a week later," he continued. "I was in bed with a nubile young thing with bright red hair and smiling eyes...ahh. She was lovely. Stupid as a stump, but a pretty face, nonetheless. She flapped her lips to the rest of her backwater village about me – said something about catching a wizard by the pinky toe – and someone told someone else...you get the idea. Bad news and rumors travel faster through a village than the Bubonic Plague. I suppose the Templars being in possession of my phylactery didn't help matters much."

Nathaniel tapped his fork against his plate. "I heard that rumor all the way in the Free Marches. I thought it was a fish story made up to amuse taverngoers."

Preening, Anders puffed his chest out. "I'm famous all the way in the Free Marches? Spectacular." His smile faded. "That little stunt landed me in solitary for a month. It wasn't the first time, and it certainly wasn't the last time, either. Once, when I was fifteen, I stirred up a windstorm to float me across the Lake. I made it a mite too strong – not only did it hurl me across Calenhad, it landed me in a fir tree. I fell from the top and managed to break my fall with every single branch along the way. When I finally finished falling out of the tree, I realized that I had broken six ribs, dislocated my shoulder and fractured my jaw. You could have heard me screaming all the way _in_ the Free Marches, I wager. When the Templars found me and brought me back, they made me sit in solitary for three days before they let a healer in to fix me." All traces of jocularity were gone from Anders' face. "I learned how to heal myself in a hurry. It's amazing what agony does to your learning acumen."

He fell silent again, and Leonie frowned. "Andraste's Shining Sword," she said. "I had no idea the Circle was that bad here in Ferelden."

Anders narrowed his eyes at Leonie. "Oh...I'm sorry," said he, a touch of vitriol still tingeing his voice, "is the Circle in Val Royeaux that much better? Because if it is, I ought to have requested a transfer, shouldn't I have?"

Leonie stared at Anders for a few moments, her countenance thoughtful during her quick, silent palaver with herself. She stood, draped her cotton napkin over her denuded plate, and beckoned Anders with one crooked finger. "Come with me."

He looked at the Orlesian woman slightly askance. "Why?"

As much as Leonie tried to hold onto her temper, Anders' cheek had pushed her too far. Leonie circled the table and pushed her face pugnaciously into his. "Because I _said_ so."

He pressed his lips together until they formed a thin white line. "Yes, Commander."

Nathaniel tore into a massive turkey leg. "Idiot," he said,_ sotto voce_.

As he rose from the table, Anders sneered at Nathaniel. He would not look at Leonie as they left the dining hall and made a quick right down a dank, dark corridor. Oh, he knew what was down this dim hallway – he began his existence as a future Grey Warden in one of the cramped holding cells there. He made a noise of resignation in his throat. It seemed that he would make that particular part of the Vigil's acquaintance again.

Leonie pulled an enormous set of keys from her belt. "I haven't given these back to Varel yet," she explained, a bit shamefaced, to Anders. "I have no reason to carry them. He knows the ins and outs of this stronghold better than I ever will...so I leave the responsibility of keeping the Vigil's locks secure in his capable hands." She seated a small iron key in the barred door's lock, and swung it open to reveal the dank gaol Anders remembered from the day before last.

In silence, the two Wardens beheld the small cell. Leonie cleared her throat. "I understand your anger, Anders."

Anders snorted derisively. "What would _you_ know about it?"

Leonie stood before the gaol, her gaze on the far side of the cell, picking her words with care. "The Chevalier in Orlais can be as ruthless and vicious as your Templars, if not worse in some respects. For many, many years, women were not allowed to be warriors, let alone Chevalier. It was punishable by death. Only in recent history were women like me allowed to take up arms in Orlais. It took a strong woman to stand up to her Chevalier oppressors – to show them that she was equal in every way to her male counterparts. She was willing to give life and liberty to prove that point. It is the same with you, I see." She cut her gaze from the cell to Anders. "I became a Grey Warden because of that long-ago Chevalier. I'm not suited to be Chevalier, physically, but I can fight for what is right...to save all that I hold dear. I believe that everyone is entitled to being what they were born to be, in freedom."

"Why are you telling me this?" Anders murmured. He stepped forward, mentally prepared for his fresh imprisonment. Leonie blocked his way into the jail cell.

She gestured to the gaol without looking at it. "While I am Commander here, you will never see the inside of this cell – not for being an apostate, not for arguing your rights, and certainly not for being an insufferable ass." She winked suddenly at the mage, and Anders was surprised into a charming smile of his own. It faded when Leonie continued.

"I ask you for one boon, in return for my understanding of your plight. Do not countermine my authority to the rest of the Wardens. I am even-tempered, but that only goes so far. I am here to guide the new recruits – _you_ included – and I cannot do what I have been sent to do if you demoralize the rest of the Wardens."

"All two of them?"

"Yes," she said, nodding curtly. "All two of them. This boon stretches to one – or one _million_ – brothers and sisters." She stepped closer to Anders, arching her neck to stare into his face, as their height differences were great. "Do we have an accord?"

"I..." Anders held her smoking gaze for a few seconds, and found that if he tried to hold it for much longer it might very well burn him. "We do."

Leonie nodded. "Every Warden is an appendage of their Order. On a smaller scale, the Wardens under my care and tutelage – along with the everyday workmen and women that make sure everything runs smoothly, like Varel – are appendages of me, their Commander. Alone, a Grey Warden _is_ capable of accomplishing great things. King Alistair and the late Hero of Ferelden were prime examples...but when an entire army of Wardens think and act as one, they function like an unstoppable, well-oiled war machine. When one cog is off-kilter, it throws the entire machine off-balance, and everything can potentially collapse in a flurry of nuts and bolts." The Warden Commander crossed her arms over her leather bodice in a fretful gesture. "I depend on my charges to follow orders, and my charges depend on me to steer them right. It is a fine balancing act."

Anders stood wordless, shamed. She was right, of course. He took a deep breath, and ate crow. "I'm sorry, Commander. My mother taught me better manners than that. Sometimes, I open my mouth so wide, I fall right in."

_Crisis averted_, thought Leonie. _Thank the Maker_. "Call me Leonie, if you like. I'm not only your commander, Anders. I'd like to be your friend, as well."

"Andraste's flaming knickers," said Anders. "You know exactly what to say to make someone feel at ease. I wonder why they haven't put you in charge yet...oh, wait." They shared a tension-breaking laugh.

The gaol door swung shut, and Leonie locked it. She inclined her chin at the dining hall. "Let's get some dessert, shall we? You've left room for treacle, yes?"

"Leonie, I still have room for another helping of _dinner_," said Anders.


	3. Encounter

Snow fell outside the smoked-glass window of Leonie's office. She wasn't used to this biting, damp coldness – when she left Val Royeaux, the sun shone and the nights were balmy. Leonie shivered, and opened the top drawer of her desk to rummage for her newly acquired hand-muffs.

They weren't fine, like the silken hand-muff she had gotten from her closest childhood friend the Satinalia before last. That pair was well-loved and well-cared for: they were lined with the finest, softest fur, padded with toasty-warm wool, and embroidered in fine threads made of the purest gold and carmine.

No...her new hand-muffs were nothing like that. These more utilitarian muffs were drab, lumpy pieces of animal skin that kept her from developing frostbite on the tips of her fingers, nothing more. She fished the ugly things out of her desk drawer and tossed them on her windowsill.

She wanted desperately to go outside for some fresh air and to limber up a bit. Since arriving at the Vigil, Leonie had been indoors most of the time. Leonie knew that there was much to be accomplished _inside_...but first, she wanted to perform her morning calisthenics. She wanted to spar with some of the guards; she wanted to run, to heat her extremities past the point of just above freezing; she wanted to find a bit of action, to test her abilities as Commander and the abilities of her recruits.

But she couldn't keep calling the new Grey Wardens _recruits_ anymore, could she? They had passed the test of the Joining, and all but one survived. They earned the right to be called Wardens. Leonie nodded to herself. She wanted to test their abilities, yes, but they had already passed the first trial and deserved their titles. No more would she call them 'recruits'...or at least she would try not to call them that.

Yes. With the nagging thoughts of the erstwhile recruits out of the way and out of mind, Leonie decided to finish paperwork first before going outside.

Easier said than done...Leonie sat at her fine oaken desk for the greater part of an hour, poring over complaints and court matters. She couldn't _believe _there were so many Fereldans in this tiny burg that complained so much. Her _pince-nez_ were killing her; Leonie slipped the damnable things off and let them hang between her breasts on their fine silver chain. She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose, then smiled down at her first acquisition in Ferelden.

The fine desk she now sat before once belonged to a Warden Commander of years gone by: the legendary Sophia Dryden. King Alistair had it shipped from the Warden's Keep on Soldier's Peak, high in the mountains. He arrived alongside the desk during his recent State visit, and presented the piece of furniture as a welcome gift, along with a most fantastic story of its previous owner.

Leonie didn't know how much of King Alistair's sometimes macabre, sometimes unsettling story she believed...the King told tales of storming the Peak with the Hero of Ferelden and recovering it from demons, the undead, and – of all things – the possessed corpse of Sophia Dryden herself. The unsettling part was the report of a wizened, ancient Grey Warden that had managed to stay alive for hundreds of years despite the Taint and the march of time; more unsettling still was that the selfsame mage still allegedly lived in the Keep's spires, and had managed to stay alive thanks to blood magic.

She had no idea whether the tale told by King Alistair was a fish-story made to entertain her and her new recruits, or if it was true – the dwarf confirmed the King's tales as well, but how much could Leonie trust the drunken dwarf's word? Only time would tell on that front...but as for the tall tale, the King told it with such fervor and the simple joy of keeping a crowd of people enraptured by his words, that she was inclined to overlook the near-impossibilities.

Smiling broadly, she ran her palm over the heavily varnished desktop, almost sensing the years singing within its dark wood. It was a fine desk, and a fine gift given by a fine King. Leonie would have laid her cheek against the heavy grain of the wood and hugged the desk's sides, if one of her administrators had not taken that opportunity to knock at her door.

Mistress Woolsey stood in Leonie's doorway, her fist half-raised to knock again. She cleared her throat, and said in her sere voice, "Am I interrupting anything, Commander?" Woolsey smiled a bit, a strange expression on the usually-stern female Anders' face. The fine wrinkles in her cheeks deepened in mirth. "I can come back after you two have fully made your acquaintances..."

"No, no...there's no need." Clearing her throat herself, Leonie slid her chair back from her desk (giving the deeply varnished wood a loving touch in farewell) and shook her head. She smiled, a bit shamefaced, at Woolsey, and motioned with her hand at the chair on the opposite side of her desk. "What do you have for me?"

Woolsey nodded, and entered the otherwise Spartan office. As she sat in the severe, straight-backed chair, Mistress Woolsey riffled a few sheets of parchment. "There is a disturbance in the Wending Wood, some ten kilometers outside Amaranthine, that is affecting trade in the district. The locals have described this disturbance as 'a woodsy axe murderer on the rampage'." Woolsey shook her head ruefully. "I care not about defensive actions and military affairs, but whoever this person is, he or she has slowed trade to a crawl, due to caravans refusing to enter the Wood...and the Wood is essentially the only way to Amaranthine from the coastline."

"There's a recipe for disaster," said Leonie, worrying her lower lip. "Loss of trade in Amaranthine could bring the city to its knees."

Woolsey nodded curtly. "Just so. Also, there is a man in Amaranthine proper that wishes to speak to you on the matter. Check on that first and foremost, would you?"

Smiling inwardly, Leonie returned the nod. Woolsey was the type of woman that you rarely said 'no' to, and Woolsey had gotten used to that fact – so much so, that she rattled off commands to the Warden Commander. And from what Leonie had gathered from the elder guards and Varel himself, she was most certainly not the first. Every single Warden Commander before her, and in more than one country, had learned _not_ to say 'no' to her the hard way. Leonie's mother had taught her early on that any fool can learn from their own mistakes (and some didn't even do that), but the really smart ones learned from _other_ people's mistakes.

"I shall attend to it directly. Allow me to rally the recr...the _other_ Wardens...and we shall go to the Wending Wood." Leonie's eyebrows quirked slightly when Woolsey shook her head again.

"Amaranthine first, Commander, and promptly." She stood and left Leonie's office without another word.

Alone, Leonie sighed. "So much for calisthenics."

* * *

Winding her cloak around her shoulders, Leonie made her way to the common room. She found two of the newest Grey Wardens there, playing chess and arguing in a good-natured fashion. She peered around in the gloom, and spotted the third. Leonie wasn't surprised, as of late. The dwarf loved his spirits, she realized, and would not stray far from the cask of hard cider the Wardens kept in a shadowy corner of the common room.

Making a noise of irritation in her throat, Leonie stood at the table where Nathaniel and the tall, blonde Anders threw verbal punches at each other. Nathaniel made his move, and gestured to the chessboard. "Your turn, Mage...or do you concede defeat?"

"Hard-_ly_," said Anders, blowing an irritated snort through his pursed lips. He castled, and jerked his chin at the playing field. "You're going to have to go a lot further than _that_ to beat me at this game. We mages had a lot of free time on our hands after the Harrowing."

Nathaniel checked Anders. "As did I, after I made it to the Free Marches."

"Mm-hmm." After taking out one of Nathaniel's knights, Anders folded his hands before the chessboard. "And how did you manage to fit an entire chessboard and its pieces into your bindle-pack?" He grinned at Nathaniel, and his sunny smile was as ersatz as fool's gold.

Nate's own visage became stony. "I was hardly a hobo, Anders. I had no choice but to go to the Free Marches. There was nothing for me here. I whiled away many a night in the taverns there, beating jackasses like _you_ out of their money."

The greasy smile did not slip from Anders' chops, but a dark flush began at his collar and rose to tinge his cheeks. He raised his eyebrows at the archer. "Not today, you won't."

"You're going to have to finish this another time," said Leonie, sensing an ugly physical altercation on the horizon. "We have better things to do. Get your gear."

Not realizing that their Commander had witnessed the argument, the two Wardens started, rose quickly and cleared the table of their game. Anders elbowed Nathaniel in the ribs. "Next time, Nate...but next time I won't be so nice. I'll take your King in three shakes."

"We'll see," said Nathaniel. He made a sour face. "And don't call me Nate."

Grinning hugely, Anders said, "Why not? Your nanny called you 'Nate'." Leonie hid a smile of her own. It seemed that Anders' new hobby was teasing Nathaniel.

"He's a groundskeeper, not a nanny," he said. Shaking himself almost visibly from his funk, he turned his expectant gaze to Leonie. "Where are we going?"

"Amaranthine, then the Wending Wood," said Leonie. "I know nothing of this area yet, so I need to depend on you, Nathaniel, to guide me through the area."

Nathaniel nodded, his pride puffing his chest importantly. Anders grinned, shaking his head. "I hid in Amaranthine too, Commander. I know my way around the rat-holes in the undercity."

"Good." Leonie hooked her thumb over her shoulder at the giant double-doors of the Keep. "We are going to need all the help we can get. Now hop."

* * *

Leonie and the three newest Wardens arrived at Amaranthine. At the impressive gates to the fabled city, Anders threw his arms wide. "Ah, Amaranthine! I missed this old girl." He glanced over at Nathaniel, and raised one shoulder. "I'm not sure if I miss being called a 'houligan', but it was almost yesterday that the shopkeepers called me that...and a host of even more unsavory names."

"I'll bet you deserved it, too," said Nathaniel. He waggled his eyebrows at Leonie, who returned the warmth.

Anders chuckled deep within his chest. "Oh, you don't know the half of it."

Glancing about, Leonie pursed her lips. "Nathaniel, we need to meet this Mervis by the Western Balustrade...which way?"

Nathaniel pointed the way with the crest of his bow. "There, a half-kilometer or so past the shop district." He frowned at the open-air district, which looked to be in a state of disrepair. "It's a bit seedier than I remember."

The archer glanced at the tow-headed Anders for his sarcastic take on the state of the shops, but Anders' attention was diverted by the back-end of a tiny elven rogue as she slipped soundlessly through a nondescript doorway into an equally-plain dark hallway.

Nathaniel cocked his head to one side, his hackles rising. "Anders?"

"Yeah, Nate," said Anders distractedly, without taking his amber eyes off the now-closed door. "What you said."

"What is it?" Nathaniel stepped alongside Anders, and jerked his chin at the door. "Everything all right?"

Anders shook himself from his funk, as a dog would shake off water. "Nothing...it's nothing. I could have sworn that rogue was someone I knew."

The archer nodded slowly. "All right, Anders." He fixed Anders with a hard gaze. "You _would_ tell us if something was amiss, so as to keep us abreast of any danger. _Right_?

"Right," said Anders in the same sere tone. "To the Western Balustrade, then." The mage walked, stiff-legged, past the dusty bottles and musty-smelling wolf pelts of the first shop, and Nathaniel watched him go with unblinking eyes.

* * *

According to Mervis, a murderer as cunning and cold-blooded as a basilisk lurked in the Wending Woods, waiting to waylay anyone unlucky or stupid enough to wander into the Wood. The remains of the victims were a sorry sight, indeed.

"All human, they were," said Mervis. His hands twisted together in a worried fashion over his paunch. "This couldn't be Darkspawn attacks, surely. The Dalish are in the Wending Wood this time of year, but none of the victims were elves...the Darkspawn aren't the type to pick and choose who to kill and eat."

"No," said Nathaniel. He laddered his forehead, clearly worried. "They believe in equal opportunity mass-murder."

"Just so," said Mervis, inclining his chin at the archer. "And all the attacks were aimed at the caravans that pass through the Wood. This could be very bad for trade here in Amaranthine." He blanched. "A lot of people and their families will go hungry this year...or worse, if trade doesn't pick up again. Mine included."

Leonie hooked an errant curl from her forehead behind her ear, frowning in a distracted way. "All right. We'll see what we can find. Be of good cheer, Mervis."

"Of course...and I would be remiss if I didn't warn you away from the Dalish," he replied. He quickly added, "I'm not prejudiced, not by any stretch of the imagination...but the locals here in Amaranthine have gotten a bit twitchy as of late when it comes to the Dalish. Lots of bad blood, you understand."

Oghren, silent up until now, pursed his lips. "We _do_ understand. So why should _we_ be wary of the _Dalish_?"

Mervis cleared his throat. "The locals aren't the only twitchy lot. You don't want the Dalish angry at you for any reason. They're a fearsome bunch."

Leonie could imagine, considering how much elves in general and the Dalish in particular had put up with regarding humans and their biases. _Twitchy_ didn't even begin to cover it. "We'll return with news, Mervis."

"Maker's blessings upon you," the stout merchant said with a half-bow and a relieved gust of breath. "Be safe."

* * *

Serene and wild, the Wending Wood had always been a place of almost ethereal beauty. Pilgrim Path, the route that wound its way through the Wood, was littered with relics and offerings to Andraste by wanderers and journeymen on their way to Amaranthine.

Lately, the Path was used mainly as a trade thoroughfare...at least before the Darkspawn unearthed themselves in Ferelden during the last Blight, and the 'Woodsy Axe Murderer' had begun to terrorize the merchants traveling the Path.

Of course the merchants suspected the Dalish...why wouldn't they? After many nomadic years and much bad blood between themselves and rooted folk, the Dalish stirred within the humans of Amaranthine more than a little bit of uneasiness.

Leonie breathed deep the air about her head, perfumed with the heavily intoxicating aroma of ground-mist and the spice of dry, years-old leaves and underbrush and heavy, dark earth. She reveled in it while she could; despite still being one month from Satinalia, the scent of the Dying Time there in Ferelden had already begun to be overlaid with the scent of winter. It got so cold in Ferelden so fast.

Leonie and the new Wardens crossed a hand-tooled bridge over a narrow expanse. When they reached the other side, the forest opened to them.

It was a wild place, but the Dalish caravans that stopped there left their marks as often as the humans that traveled the Path. A small, deep pool of the clearest fresh water lay before the small group of Wardens, its perimeter surrounded by a tall mound of hilly earth surmounted by a rock wall. The wall was not a natural one, but was made to look like it was – a Dalish touch, no doubt. A willow tree, some of its fine tendril-branches hanging nearly to the water's surface almost twenty feet below, grew at the head of the Dalish rock wall and overhung the rambling enclosure.

Anders approached the pond. "Nice view! Does anyone see any walking trees coming toward us?" Anders took a deep breath and stretched his arms wide, beetling his brows with feigned menace. "Now let thy children beware! For there shall walk a power in the forests whose wrath they will arouse at their peril!"

Nathaniel laughed at Anders' recollection of his favorite childhood stories. "If only Ents truly existed, and the Darkspawn were as easy to deal with as the Uruk-Hai."

"The Uruk-Hai were 'easy to deal with', were they?" Anders chuckled. "Tell _that_ to the Fellowship." He grinned at Leonie, and winked. Their Warden Commander nodded back.

Not everyone was as interested in their surroundings as Leonie. "Pretty," said Oghren sarcastically, as he glanced about the glen with a distracted air. "Can we get moving already?" He buried his stubby fingers in his hair. "All this greenery is making my beard itch."

"Now _that_ sounds like a personal problem." Anders said with a grin. He looked at Leonie again, and his gaze sharpened. Leonie had approached the pond, and knelt at the edge. "Commander...what are you doing?"

'Softly, Mage," said Leonie, as she dipped her hand in the water. She shivered with the cold and the thrill of finding fresh, un-Tainted water. She raised her had to her mouth, and drank from it. "It is not Tainted...it is safe to drink."

"What's the difference whether it's Tainted or not?" Oghren shook his head slightly. "Aren't we already Tainted?"

Leonie rose to her feet. "Yes. But the Taint can still bring on fever. We may not be killed by the Taint itself, but the fever can sometimes make a Warden miserable...and if not tended to promptly, a fever can kill."

"We can get our pet healer to tend to any fever," said Oghren, shrugging.

"Not _this_ fever," said Leonie. She raised her hand to the path through the clearing. Her Wardens walked toward that motion. "No magic on Thedas can cure the Taint, or its megrims."

"Gruesome thought," said Nathaniel, shuddering. "I've seen what Taint sickness does to a human body. I wish magic really _could_ destroy the Taint along with the Darkspawn."

Anders nodded. "As do we," he said softly. "Mages are just as terrified of Darkspawn as everyone else." The group rounded a corner, and skidded to a halt.

Strewn across the path were three or four carts, smashed to bits. Whatever the carts had once held had long been pillaged. The few people that had once drove this caravan were dead, their bodies quietly moldering in the dappled sunlight.

"Not to belabor the point or anything," said Anders, his skin crawling, "but this caravan looks like it's been attacked."

"You don't say," said Oghren. He rolled his eyes. "Ancestors...you're either an insufferable smartass, or you're stupid as a rock."

Leonie ducked into the nearest cart, and just as quickly yanked herself from the wreckage. "More bodies," she said, motioning to the blasted cart, "and the goods are missing, but...the caravan's hidden stores and coin are otherwise intact. This attack wasn't based on theft." Leonie crossed her arms fretfully. "This could very well be that 'Woodsy Axe Murderer' that those fools in Amaranthine are talking about. I..."

Her eyes widened, and she gasped. She turned her head to her Wardens, and motioned to the copse. "To the bushes..." she whispered, "..._now_!"

"What...?" began Anders, as Nathaniel deftly turned on one heel and shimmied up the nearest hoary old oak. Leonie blinked in disbelief at Nathaniel, while Oghren glared at Leonie, a hint of desperation and terror glinting in his gimlet eyes. "I _can't_ climb, Commander! What do you expect me to do?"

Leonie looked at Oghren and his stubby arms and legs, glared again at Nathaniel and Anders as they scaled their trees, and grasped his shoulder to reassure him. "You and I shall take to the undergrowth. I can tell where the Darkspawn will emerge, so we will be safe enough. Come!" She drove Oghren to an overgrown span of yew bushes.

* * *

"_Darkspawn_?" said Anders, his fingers trembling against the oak's bark-encrusted bole. "_Now_? When it rains, it pours."

"More climbing, less talking," said Nathaniel, huffing. He straddled a fairly large branch and settled his back to the tree's trunk. He took a deep, shaky breath, and nodded once. "But...you're right," he said to a still-climbing Anders. "You'd think these Darkspawn would have the common decency to wait for us to finish with the Woodsy Axe Murderer."

Anders finished his shaky ascent. He sat with a whistling grunt on his branch, and grunted laughter. "Sincerely. Who taught these things manners?"

"Their Mother, most likely," said Nathaniel without any trace of jocularity.

Anders remembered his last terrifying nightmare, and shuddered. He shook the imagery from his mind, but could not rid himself of the shaky, trembly feeling that thrilled through his body. He looked over at the next tree, and at Nathaniel, and watched as he trembled too.

Nathaniel slung one arm around the tree trunk, and blinked. "Is the ground shaking, or is this what sensing Darkspawn feels like?"

Anders glanced past Nathaniel and his tree and blanched. "Both." He also blinked. "Now _that_ is an ugly bastard," said Anders conversationally. He narrowed his eyes at the mountainous ogre that ambled into their copse, and lowered his voice. "Let's pray that they can't sense _us_ as well as we can sense _them_. Not that my Warden senses are sharp, or anything, but still."

Nathaniel shook his head slightly, and murmured, "No...not yet. Leonie said that talent will ripen in time." He cupped his hands to his mouth and blew on his fingers to warm them.

"Chilly, Nate?" Anders spread his bare arms wide. "_I_ love the cold."

"Well, aren't _you_ special," hissed Nathaniel. He rolled his eyes, then stiffened. He motioned to the earth below the tree. _Don't move,_ he mouthed to Anders.

The mage glanced beneath his feet, and felt his stomach drop. The ogre had stopped rolling around the glen, and was sniffing the air around its head. It swiveled its horned, armored cranium on its tree-trunk neck for a few more moments, just before it tilted its head back and looked right in Anders' and Nathaniel's direction.

* * *

"Commander...it might be a good time to help those idiots," said Oghren. He spread the bushes aside with one hand. He shook his head at Nathaniel and Anders, and gestured angrily with his free hand. "Are you gonna stand there and let them get pummeled into chopped nug steaks?"

"Perhaps," said Leonie flatly. "They wanted to split the party, they shall learn the consequences of being foolish blowhards."

"But they're gonna get _killed_, Commander!"

The Warden Commander pressed her lips together. "I will not allow them to be killed, but I wish to see how they get themselves out of this situation."

Oghren made a disgusted noise in his throat. "I can't stand by and watch them get murdered by Darkspawn, no matter how stupid I think they are." He un-shouldered his axe and ran, bellowing obscenities, into the copse.

"_Tch_." Leonie clucked at her teeth, sighed, and popped the safety straps on her daggers. "Stupid is as stupid does."

* * *

The ogre's eyes widened, and it grunted in dazed surprise at the sight of the two treed Wardens.

"My word," Anders said shakily.

"Anders?" Nathaniel grabbed the tree's bole. "_Run_."

Nathaniel swung down the tree, as deft as a chipmunk. Anders stood on his branch, shivering in the glare of the ogre's full attention. He tried to grab the trunk and shimmy down as dextrously as Nathaniel did, but all Anders managed to do was slip on the half-frozen branch and swing by his hands out of the tree. Anders' staff, _Lamppost-in-Winter_, clattered out of the tree to the ground beneath his feet.

"_Damn it all_!" he shouted. When he was sure his hands wouldn't slip from the branch and send him hurtling to the ground, Anders looked up to gauge his surroundings. He did not expect to stare an ogre squarely in the eyes.

"Not good," he said, panicking. The ogre bellowed its mindless fury into Anders' face, and its breath smelled of rotting flesh. "Not good, oh no, not good at all..."

The ogre swung a fist the size of a fully grown sow at the helpless Anders. With no choice in the matter, Anders let go of the branch just in time to avoid the crushing blow. He fell, cursing his poor luck, to the half-frozen ground at the ogre's feet.

When Anders landed, he hit the ground hard. His breath _whooshed_ out of his lungs painfully. The impact knocked loose some snow from the tree's branches, and it settled on his head and shoulders in an almost festive way. He looked up, dazed, to see the ogre begin to unearth a rock big enough to crush Anders and Nathaniel in one fell swoop.

Mewling in terror, Anders tried to rise to his feet and found he could not. He crab-walked away from the menace that loomed before his prone body, again cursing his fate but powerless to avoid death this time. As the ogre turned ponderously, boulder in its hands, Nathaniel appeared at Anders' elbow. He grabbed the mage's arm, dragging him roughly to his feet.

"Move!" Nathaniel pointed to the clearing in the woods past the yew bushes, while Anders scooped up the _Lamppost_. "If we get a head start on it, maybe we can outrun it!" He sprinted to the clearing, while Anders limp-ran behind Nathaniel as quickly as he was able. The ogre's boulder _boomed_ harmlessly to the earth where Anders stood one split-second prior, drawing a deep divot in the frozen soil.

From her vantage point behind the wall of trees, Leonie stood her ground, ready to intervene when her newest Wardens found themselves in a situation in which they could not escape. She would not interfere, not yet...but it looked like the time was coming, fast.

* * *

A smallish red blur zipped past the two retreating Wardens. Oghren leapt at the mountainous Darkspawn, swinging his double-headed axe over his head and intent on burying the business end of it in the ogre's forehead. He brought the axe down, whistling, on the ogre's head.

The dwarf scored a direct hit. The axe _clanged_ between the ogre's horns, bouncing off with force and driving Oghren to the copse's snowy floor. His finely made axe clattered to the ground beside him. The slightly inebriated dwarf picked up the weapon, and turned as red as his hair when he assessed the damage one ogre could do without even trying.

The cutting end of the axe had a deep, blunt concave curve where it and the ogre's forehead had met. Oghren glanced up at the ogre, and was not surprised to see the ogre's head didn't even have a scratch on it.

He blew an irritated snort through his nose. "Figures," Oghren said to himself. He tossed the axe aside, and groped at his own back for his not-quite-as-fine broadsword. "I really liked that axe, too." Oghren's eyes widened suddenly when the ogre rushed his prone body.

"Uh-oh," said Oghren, as the ogre dropped to one knee and prepared to bull-rush him.

* * *

The clearing in sight, Nathaniel darted between two large, misshapen pine trees and whipped his head around to assess the situation. Anders loped painfully behind him, and skidded to a halt behind the first of the two pines. They watched as the ogre tossed Oghren like a rag-doll.

"Nate...where was that pond we passed earlier?"

Nathaniel hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "This way. Why?"

As the ogre lumbered in the direction of the two Wardens, Anders motioned to it, then to the clearing. "If we can lure the ogre to the pond, I can ensnare the beast under a sheet of ice," he panted. "If it doesn't drown the bastard outright, the trap might help to put some distance between us and it. I can't run like this forever."

"Right." Nathaniel noticed Anders had begun rubbing his side, where a stitch had formed. He smirked. "Do you need help? Perhaps I can give you a horsey-back ride to the pond...or maybe I can throw you over my shoulder?"

Bellowing, the ogre found their hiding spot, and stomped in their direction. They ran, as well as they could under the circumstances, to the pond by the broken-down stone wall. "Oh, you're a..._riot_," said Anders, badly winded. "You...ought to take...your act on the road!"

"Save it!" The rock-wall in sight, the two men redoubled their efforts. The ogre put on an unearthly display of speed that belied its mass. Nathaniel glanced over his shoulder and realized that if they didn't pull ahead faster, the ogre would be upon them. He ran hard, then leapt for the branch that hung past the wall.

Anders watched as Nathaniel flew gracefully through the air, grabbed the branch, and swung with force over the chasm. If he could do the same, the ogre would leap after him and fall over the lip of the rock wall into the pond below. Anders tried to run faster, but the stitch bit deeper into his side. The ogre loomed closer; Anders could feel blurts of the monster's hot, charnel-house breath on the back of his neck.

That decided it. Anders leapt for the branch that Nathaniel hung from.

And missed.

He felt the bark on the tips of his fingers as they slid off the branch. Anders sailed over the rock wall, twenty feet above the clear pond below. His body flipped over mid-air; he felt rather than saw the ogre follow him over the wall's lip and into the chasm. He had but a moment to criticize himself for his clumsiness, before another idea struck him. He drew energy from the Arcane and began casting his spell, as Nathaniel snatched at his trailing, out-of-reach robes. The spell was ready, just as Anders slammed into the pond.

_Maker_, the water was cold. A mere moment after he struck the bottom, Anders regained his senses and gazed through the crystal-clear water of the pond as the ogre fell. _Cold, but all the better for this to work,_ thought Anders, as he watched the ogre hurtle through the air towards the surface of the pond. He knew this was terribly dangerous, especially if he could not escape, but it was a sight better than becoming masticated bits of mage stuck in the ogre's teeth.

When the ogre's body blotted out the sky above its body, Anders released the spell. The first two feet of the entire surface of the pond froze solid. When the ogre arrived, it hit the wall of ice head-first. The ogre's forehead cracked open, bleeding feebly on the ice, as its body canted at an odd angle on its shoulders.

It would have been a funny sight – absolutely hi_larious_ – if the immediacy of the situation hadn't taken the hilarity out of the crooked Darkspawn sculpture perched on the ice...the_ two-foot thick_ block of ice that spanned the surface of the pond from edge to edge. Anders had a funny feeling this situation wasn't one that he was easily going to get out of...but if he was lucky, he had one chance to escape before he resorted to more drastic measures. Like dying, perhaps.

The ogre cracked open one eye and gave voice to a soggy grunt. Its body, canted crazily as it was, toppled over and crashed to the surface. It swiveled its eye down and peered through the clear ice at Anders.

One chance, and Anders went all in on the long-shot. The mage kicked to the surface and pressed a palm against the ice. He brought his other hand up to eye level, and made an obscene gesture at the ogre. _Bugger off!_ he mouthed at the beast, grinning even while his lungs burned.

Snarling, the ogre pushed itself to its hands and knees. Anders had a brief moment in which he thought it would be in his best interest to get the hell away from the frozen surface, before the ogre's fist broke through the ice a hairsbreadth before Anders' upturned face.

_Well, this went from bad to worse,_ thought Anders, as he rolled his eyes from the grimy, livestock-sized fist to the ogre's sneering face. _At least I can get out, now. Maker, I can almost smell its foulness, even down here...right, I can't_ breathe _down here..._

Before he could move, a gloved hand smashed through the remnants of Anders' ice wall and the scrim of ice that had already begun to form along the surface again, and grabbed Anders by the horsetail. His salvation dragged him, kicking and gasping, to the surface.

Nathaniel pulled him to the edge of the pond. He shook Anders by his hair. "_Are you daft?_ You could have _killed_ yourself, you bloody idiot!"

"Ow! Quit that!" Anders yanked his hair out of Nathaniel's grasp. "I was in full control of the situation."

Nathaniel sucked at his teeth angrily. "Like _hell_ you were! If I didn't grab you when I did, you would have drowned, you moron!"

"_Full_ control!" Anders scowled at Nathaniel, and raised one hand to his face.

Nathaniel blinked once; he could not perform magic, nor did he know what the energies precisely felt like, but he certainly sensed _something_ as Anders touched the Arcane again. When the mage drew energy seemingly from the aether around his head, Nathaniel could have sworn he felt air press painfully against his eardrums.

The ogre roared, and began slogging through freezing water and broken ice toward the two Wardens. Anders pistoned his arm straight out from his shoulder, and the ogre froze solid. With his other hand, Anders formed an arcane bolt that he hurled at the hideous, ogre-shaped ice-sculpture. The towering Darkspawn monstrosity shattered, flinging chunks of partially solidified organs and rapidly thawing blood spicules in every direction.

Anders surveyed his handiwork for a moment, rubbing streaks of Darkspawn blood from his face. He regarded Nathaniel smugly. "Full control," he repeated. He looked down at his lower half; from the waist down, he was still submerged in freezing pond water. "Can I get out of this pond, please? My naughty bits are getting frostbitten."

"Idiot," Nathaniel said. He grabbed Anders under his arms, and dragged him out of the water. "Let me start a fire, idiot, before you freeze to death."

"Don't bother," said a sere voice from the top of the rock wall. Nathaniel and Anders looked up quickly, to find the whitened, enraged face of their Warden Commander. "You three have wasted enough of my time today. We have too many things to accomplish for you to have the luxury of a fire. If you want to warm up, you can do so by walking this off." Her angry face disappeared from above the rock-wall.

Anders grinned at Nathaniel. "I think you made her angry," he said, spreading his hands in mock-sympathy.

"_Me_?" Nathaniel's eyebrows vaulted to his hairline, even as his lips curled in mirth. "_I_ wasn't the one that was nearly killed by a half-size runt of an ogre."

"Who are you kidding? That thing was a _monster_!"

"You two had better stow it," said a new addition to the conversation. Oghren ambled to where Nathaniel and Anders sat by the water's edge. "You guys've pissed the Commander off something fierce. You both disobeyed a direct order to make for the bushes, and I disobeyed her by trying to help you two escape." He pressed the heel of his hand against a fairly nasty-looking gash on his left temple. "So...yeah. Don't make a bad situation worse." He motioned with his head toward the rock wall and slowly ascended the not-quite-Elven-made slope of the hill.

Nathaniel sighed. "Time to face the music."

"Yeah." Anders wrung his woolen robes between his hands as they climbed the slope. At the top, Leonie and Oghren waited beside a small fire.

Leonie jerked her chin at the fire. "Tend to yourselves," she said coldly. "We leave here in one quarter of an hour. I want you three to be at your fighting best when we come across whatever destroyed that caravan." She gazed first at Nathaniel, who stared resolutely at his lap, then at Anders, her eyes narrowing.

Anders, cowed, was the first to drop his gaze.


End file.
